Meanwhile I was initiated little by little into the mysteries of Tibetan politics. Tsaktserkan, sent by the Tashi Lama, used to visit me at dusk. He asked me how it came about that, after the English had been victorious against Tibet, China reaped all the advantages of the victory, and China’s power increased in the country while England’s prestige declined. The Tashi Lama was much disturbed by the continued absence of the Dalai Lama. Immediately after his return from India he had sent presents to the Dalai Lama, and written several letters to him, but had never received a reply. The Dalai Lama had been his tutor, and he was grieved that he could not help him in his difficult situation. The authorities at Lhasa were incensed against Tashi-lunpo, and asserted that the Tashi Lama had been bribed by the English not to take part in the war. The Tashi Lama sent to ask me if I thought that the Emperor of China was angry with him because of his journey to India, to which I answered that in my opinion the Emperor would be pleased if the Tashi Lama maintained peace with his powerful neighbour to the south, and if there was a good understanding between Tibet and India.
Then on March 5 I received a remarkable letter from Gaw Daloi. He advised me “in strict confidence” to write to Chang Yin Tang (Tang Darin, or the Imperial Chinese Chief Commissioner in Tibet), and to the Amban Lien Yü in Lhasa, requesting Their Excellencies to grant me permission as a particular favour to travel through Gyangtse to Sikkim; he had no doubt that they would agree to the proposal. First, he had written to me that his Government had ordered him to arrest me if I came to Gyangtse, and now he advised me to go there. But by acting contrary to the orders of his Government, he gave me a dangerous hold over him: I had him now in my power, and regarded him as out of the running. I then learned in a roundabout way that his letter had been written in accordance with orders from Lhasa, where it was feared that I might not be easily got rid of if I were permitted to penetrate further into Tibet on my return journey. Ma informed me that he had orders to keep couriers in readiness for me, and that a letter would reach Lhasa in five days.
I now wrote to the Tang Darin, telling him that I would on no account act against the wishes of the Chinese Government by travelling through Gyangtse, but intended to return towards the north-west, if His Excellence would command that yaks should be placed at my disposal. As a Swede, I belonged to a country which had from ancient times been on friendly terms with China, and had no political interests in Tibet.
At the same time I wrote also to Lien Darin, and represented that neither the Chinese nor the Tibetan Government had any reason to complain of my journey to Shigatse; if my coming were displeasing to them, they should have prevented me in good time. On the contrary, they ought to be grateful to me for calling attention to the possibility of traversing their country, and I advised them to be more watchful in future if they wished to exclude Europeans. I should not think of travelling to India, for my people were mountaineers and would drop down in the heat like flies; they were, moreover, British subjects, and I was answerable for their safe return to Leh. It was impossible to travel through the Chang-tang, but I would willingly follow a route on the north side of the Tsangpo, where there were nomads. If they wished to get rid of me, they should not render my return more difficult, but rather facilitate it in every way.
When, therefore, the Lhasa gentlemen and the deputies from the Shigatse Dzong urged me that same day to start without delay, I was able to reply that it could not possibly be done till ten days later, for it would take so long to receive an answer from Lhasa.
Our position was still like an imprisonment, though everything was done to get rid of us. On March 4 I was in Tashi-lunpo for the last time. Now I was excluded from the monastery, for I had been expressly requested to cease my visits for fear of the suspicion of the Chinese. I promised, but on condition that I should first be permitted to see the Ngakang, where the vestments and masks are stored. When this was declared impossible, we at last came to an agreement that some vestments, masks, and instruments should be brought to my garden, where I should have an opportunity of sketching them. The objects were brought at night, and while I drew them in the daytime, a watch was kept round the house so that the lamas need not fear being caught. So we came to March 10, when Tashi arrived with my last 13 yaks, which were so worn out that they were handed over to a dealer at a nominal price.
| 165. Wandering Nun with a Tanka Depicting a Religious Legend and Singing the Explanation. (In our Garden in Shigatse.) |
| 166. Gandän-chö-ding-gompa, a Nunnery in Ye. |
Under March 12 the following entry appears in my diary: “In this holy land the spring is heralded in by kettle-drums and trumpets shriller than any that are sounded at dawn from the temple roofs, and summon the lamas to their first tea. Storms, dark masses of cloud, and dust whirling along the ground, and hiding all the environs except the Dzong fort, which peeps through dust-mist like a dismal phantom ship. The temperature rises, and in the day is several degrees above freezing-point, but there is no other sign of spring. It will come sometime or other, if it is now turning in bed and trying to rub the winter sleep out of its frozen eyes. To-day raged one of the most violent storms we have experienced. The bells of the monastery rang like storm bells, but their sound did not reach us amid the howling of the tempest. The kitchen has been removed into the house, no one is seen on the courtyard, and there is a cracking and whistling among the poplars. Now and then are heard the bells of a courier’s horse which canters by the outer wall, and perhaps brings new instructions regarding me. Ma makes no sign, Lobsang Tsering has disappeared, and Tsaktserkan comes only when I send to ask him. We are more and more isolated, no one dares associate with us. Our position is exciting and even interesting. It is evident that we must leave Shigatse, but by which route? I have already told them that I will not go through Gyangtse or Khatmandu (capital of Nepal), as Ma proposed to me, and to equip here a caravan for the Chang-tang is out of the question. I have only one goal, the north of the Tsangpo, where most important discoveries await me. At the moment we are on the point of leaving Shigatse we find ourselves for the first time actually prisoners; as long as we remain here we have at any rate freedom within our own walls. And as long as I am in Tibet, I am tabu to the English, but as soon as I cross the British frontier I am done for. I cannot go to Eastern Turkestan, for the Chinese Government has, as I hear from Gaw, cancelled my passport, because it has been used for another country. To travel direct to China with Ladakis will also not do. But if I am compelled to make for Sikkim, I must dismiss the Ladakis and travel alone to Pekin to explain the affair to the mandarins.”
On March 15 the two gentlemen from Lhasa came to me again. They had been to Gyangtse, and had received orders from Gaw to watch all my movements carefully. Again they wished to know the day of my departure, and I replied that I could come to no decision until I knew by what road I should travel. If it were to the Chang-tang, they might count on a long delay, and might meanwhile buy a house and marry at their leisure. They now complained themselves of the increased power of the Chinese in Tibet, and gave their opinion that only the unrest arising from the new strict régime in Lhasa had rendered it possible for me to travel across Tibet unnoticed.
In this they were probably quite right. The blunder of the Dalai Lama and the unexpected change of front on the part of the English had given the Chinese an opportunity of establishing their supremacy over Tibet more securely than they had been able to do since the days of Kang Hi and Kien Lung in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Of the prestige of England I could not perceive a shadow, and I heard that the Tashi Lama regretted his journey to India. Perhaps it was prudent of the Liberal Government in London to give up Chumbi, and by barring the frontier to exclude all possibility of boundary disputes and friction on the Indian side; for in our times the old Asia is beginning to waken out of its deep sleep, and the Great Powers of Europe which have interests there should rather seek to retain what they already possess than endeavour to make fresh acquisitions. At any rate the Chinese statesmen exhibited on this occasion admirable prudence and vigilance, and gathered in all that the English gave up. If ever the Dalai Lama returns safely to Lhasa, he must content himself with the reverence accorded to him in the Potala as an incarnation, and he will not be allowed to have anything further to do with political affairs. The country of Tibet will doubtless in the future be closed as strictly as hitherto; for the supremacy over Tibet is a political question of the first importance to China, not only because Tibet is, as it were, a huge fortress with ramparts, walls, and ditches protecting China, but also on account of the great spiritual influence which the two popes exercise over all Mongolians. As long as China has the Dalai Lama in its power, it can keep the Mongols in check, while in other circumstances the Dalai Lama could stir them up to insurrection against China. And Mongolia is also the buffer state between China and Russia.